Emil O W Kirkegaard

I almost never deal with policy & my work is most directly on prej and stereos, not discrimination. "Justification," to me, is subjective, as is "social justice." A q I know more about is "what would produce the most accurate prediction or judgment?"

Consider a kids' soccer coach with two autistic kids on the team. To win, the coach should play the kids as little as possible. And the prediction "we are most likely to win if I keep these kids on the bench" may be true (but see next tweets).

However, that some coach might also believe that the autistic kids' parents paid the same fee to have their kids play. And that kids are kids, and that winning is not the only thing to care about.

It is also possible that the coach is thinking, "well, maybe these kids *could* be better, if only SOMEONE ever gave them a chance. They might struggle at first, but maybe, just maybe, the whole team would be better if they played."

How could that possibly be? Soccer is a team game, and exhausting. Even the stars need competent subs. Also, requiring strong players to work with weaker players could actually enhance everyone's skills by focusing on team processes more than individual ones.

So, on both ethical grounds, and long term (as opposed to short term) prediction grounds, a coach could decide "I am going to play those autistic kids, and if we lose, we lose."

Epilogue & End of Thread. That story was not hypothetical. I was an asst coach on a team where we did exactly that. And went undefeated. Basic Sun Tzu: The army with the moral high ground has a major advantage.

Distinguish between institutional aims and instit. discrim. Discrim. which maximizes inst. aims is justified by these (not whimsical/arbitrary). Question then is: are inst. aims just. Most of us would accept teams focused on winning (college sports) ..